Nvidia announced today that its upcoming Quadro K5000 will be available for use in Apple's Mac Pro systems. The new GPU is Nvidia's flagship graphics process based on its new Kepler architecture, which will have 4GB of video RAM and be about two times faster than the current Quadro 4000 GPU based on the current Fermi architecture.

Recently Engadget had a look at the new GPU running in a Mac Pro system, and found impressive performance from it when streaming HD video and adding effects in real time. Some programs like Adobe After Effects can utilize more than one GPU and perform advanced and computationally intensive ray tracing calculations for modeling lighting (reflections, shadows, etc.) around 3D models in real time. Engadget has a video of its time with the Mac Pro system, which outlines the speed of the system when coupled with the new GPU.
If you are a current Mac Pro owner and are looking for a substantial boost to its graphics performance for creative professional applications, then this GPU, which should be available by the end of the year, may be worth taking a look at.

I would really like to see some benchmarks of this thing running games. Curious as to whether it's like my G5's generation of Quadros where they were not only awesome at workstation tasks, but could go toe to toe with the high-end gaming cards, or whether it's like the previous generation where they're horrendous at gaming compared to cards built specifically for gaming.

Yeah, I definitely would not pay that, just want to see how it runs for curiosity's sake. Just the fact that they're gonna have a dual Kepler card running in a Mac Pro makes me salivate some more for the BTO GPU possibilities in the 2013 refresh.

And retina MBP, blech. Glued in battery. Soldered on RAM. Glued in display. No disc drive. Built-in lifespan and horrendous serviceability FTL. I could believe it on the MBAir all things considered, but I still can't believe they actually went and did that to the Pro line.

And retina MBP, blech. Glued in battery. Soldered on RAM. Glued in display. No disc drive. Built-in lifespan and horrendous serviceability FTL. I could believe it on the MBAir all things considered, but I still can't believe they actually went and did that to the Pro line.

I agree on the upgrade ability part. It really is quite a kick in the teeth. Apple care is now a must, cuz if anything breaks on your laptop you need an entire new one.
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However, my father owns one and it is an absolutely gorgeous machine. It makes you forget that they got rid of the ability to upgrade the innards, cuz it's so damn thin, while still retaining very fast speeds. And all your really losing is the ability to upgrade your RAM and HDD, just order it with more RAM then you usually would you'll be completely fine. If you run out of HDD space start using cloud options or an external.

The machine is so damn sexy. The screen alone makes every negative a non issue. If you whip it out, it makes any laptop on the market look like an ugly pig. The only other laptop I know of that is comparable for the price/performance/size ratio is the Razer Blade laptop, which runs over $2000, and has no multitouch - which is the best feature of any mac laptop.